In APS, definition, diagnosis, and evidence must not be conflated.
Definition concerns what life is: viability-oriented, constraint-closed organisation sustained through ongoing self-maintaining activity.
Diagnosis concerns how such organisation is identified. In APS, diagnosis evaluates whether a system maintains, restores, or reorganises viability under conditions of perturbation and vulnerability.
Evidence consists of observable indicators supporting inference to organised persistence, including:
- endogenous repair,
- coordinated regulation,
- metabolic integration,
- adaptive reorganisation,
- and viability-oriented modulation of activity.
APS therefore treats biological evidence not as a checklist of traits, but as evidence for underlying organisational conditions.
A system may:
- move without being alive,
- regulate without exhibiting biological agency,
- or display complex behaviour without sustaining its own organised persistence.
For this reason, APS asks not merely what a system does, but how its organisation contributes to maintaining its continued existence.
Key Point: Biological evidence supports inference to viability-oriented organised persistence rather than merely indicating activity, complexity, or behavioural sophistication.